Hitachi G1000 could raise convergence bar

NEW YORK-- The one device I have been hoping to get my hands is the Pocket PC Phone Edition-based G1000 from Hitachi. Not much information has been available about the forthcoming converged device, but in addition to the Treo 600, Sprint was showing off the Hitachi device at CeBiT.

So far, I'm not a big fan of the way that Microsoft went about enabling the Pocket PC operating system for cell phone functionality. Research-in-Motion's recent BlackBerry phone implementation is the one to which most other attempts at getting the software right should be compared.

Will the Hitachi G1000 satisfy enough of my mobile application needs to let me overlook the weaknesses in the operating system?

The G1000, which is due to ship in July and will be available for around $650, has a unique collection of features that enterprise users will be hard pressed to find in another converged device. Like most other Pocket PC devices, the G1000 has built-in (though not full featured) support for Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel documents-- a must have for anyone who must collaborate on documents created with MS Office. This compares favorably to converged devices based on the Palm OS, which has no built-in facilities for working with Office-based documents.

Pocket PC 2002's Pocket Outlook is also more of a classic e-mail client, offering the ability to send or receive e-mails with attachments that can be saved locally. Getting this functionality with Palm OS-based devices will require you to turn to third-party products.

Another important Pocket PC feature --- and one where Palm is finally catching up --- is the inclusion of a PPTP-based VPN client.

While these features are common to all Pocket PC-based devices, the G1000 shines over some of the leading converged competitors, including the newly announced Treo 600, in the area of a removable battery. The batteries that come with most phones are usually adequate to cover most people's voice communications needs. But when coupled with CDMA 1xRTT-based data communications (the technology that Sprint's PCS network depends on) and a large color display, a single battery probably won't get you through the day--nor should it be expected to.

Hitachi G1000: Includes removeable battery

Another noteworthy accoutrement of the G1000 is a still image camera. It's not the sort of camera you can depend on for family portraits, but it fits neatly into Sprint's strategy for getting customers into sharing impromptu images across its network. For converged devices capable of generating rich media like digital photos, Sprint PCS has a generous data plan that goes with every voice plan--all the data you can eat for free. The G1000's final check mark in the good-to-have column is an SD I/O slot for memory expansion.

The only negative observations I am able to make about the G1000 are its size and thumbboard configuration. While the G1000 has almost everything I want in a converged device, it is bigger than most converged devices. It make me think that I might be better off keeping PDA and phone separate, and using a technology like Bluetooth so that my dedicated PDA can still access the wireless WAN.

The thumbboard was also a throwback to the early BlackBerry phone designs, when dialing a new number required a user to navigate the top row of keys instead of a real phone keypad. Sure, the phone edition of PocketPC 2002 offers a soft keypad on the display, but I'm not too crazy about that workaround. It's one thing to press the wrong key while dialing a new number. It's another thing to press the wrong key while accessing an interactive voice response system such as voice mail. My preference is for a physical key pad with tactical feedback But the keys shouldn't be the row that runs across the top of the qwerty thumbboard. As with the Treos and the BlackBerry phones, a small block of the thumb board's keys should double as a telephone keypad.

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